Moonshots
Summary
The "Gambling Joint" is a simple, bare-bones organizational pattern that I believe can produce a living and fun organization.
Problem
The problem is that Corporations suck. They take human potential as input and they output obsolescence-planned designs, bored workers, jargon and groupthink. No amount of tweaking can fix their fundamental flaws. Some of the irredeemable flaws include:
- Submission to an interpretation of external logic in favor of internal consistency and integrity. Doesn't work for individual people, doesn't work for groups of people;
- A small minority of selected people, "Managers", control where the money is spent; They are stressed-out people that are forced to learn and speak an arcane, nonsensical language that is insufferable;
- A vast majority of people, the "Non-Managers", don't have any direct, actionable power. They are bored because they know what they should be doing at all times (as any human is born with that capacity) and that conflicts with what they end up doing, which is a fraction of what they can do.
For more, read Dilbert or visit Onefte.com. Or work at any Corporation for a couple of years.
Note: Cooperatives are better, but meh. We can do better.
Solution
Discover a new way to work (and profit) together that is better. Here's an organizational pattern, the "Gambling Joint", thatI believe can evolve into something that is actually implementable as a new, radically different company. I don't believe this is of any use to any existing company.
The Gambling Joint (GJ) is a group made out of the following parts:
- Gamblers (every person that participates, that is a member);
- Chips (as in Casino chips). Each gambler has zero or more Chips at any given time;
- The corporation (the legal entity that can own things).
How it works, in a nutshell:
- Any Gambler can invite another Gambler in. To remain a member, all you need is one other active referral that is still a member. You can withdraw your reference to another person at any time. A person without references "falls out" of the company and has to cash out their Chips;
- Chips are internal, virtual shares of the company that aren't transferable to non-members. If you have 5 of a total of 20 Chips in existence, you own 25% of the company. You can cash out your Chips at any time;
- When the company earns money (e.g. sells something), Chips simply increase in value;
- When the company spends money, Chips simply decrease in value;
- As a Gambler, you can cash out any amount of Chips at any time (e..g twice a month);
- Whenever people want the company to invest in something, they get together, pool their Chips (which represent their stake in the company and their "executive" decision power) and make the company buy or invest in something. There's no "consensus" or "voting" or "assembly" or "meeting" nonsense: it's all lightning-speed fundraisers happening inside of the intranet Facebook-like app that manages everything for people. The cheaper the decision is, the better presented, the more sense it makes, the faster it happens;
- Every Gambler earns one (1.0) Chip per day that they remain a member.
And that's it. All that's left is doing the actual work of the company. Any auxiliary organizational structures can be laid out on top of that kernel. The decoupling of actual power, which stems from ownership, from these additional structures, makes sure they will exist only if they make sense.
Notably, these are things that aren't part of the kernel:
- Work organization. People can self-organize to do anything they like. They can work together or alone for any amount of time. They can call each other "Manager", "Coach", "Drill-Sargeant", "SCRUM Master", "Ninja Captain" or whatever they like. It doesn't fundamentally matter how many overlapping virtual topologies people come up with to organize around actual work;
- Measurements. People can measure whatever they like, and present whatever business cases they like, with how many charts and slides they think are appropriate. Or they can just bet their chips on random projects. It is every person's call how much thinking vs. doing they want to make;
- Hiring. There's no such thing as "hiring". There's a group of people, and today, you believe in it or not. If you don't believe in it, cash out and go do something else. Today;
- Career development. Specialization is for insects;
- Defining "success". There's no possible failure, so there's no concept of success. "Success" is simply working today in a free, inspiring environment with people you like. Failure is every day when you stay and when you didn't want to stay;
- Teams. Again, people will form teams naturally. People will belong to multiple teams. There's no need to tie this to the base structure of ownership;
- Responsibilities, accountability, etc. People are naturally responsible and accountable. People naturally own their work if they don't have to spend 99% of their vital energies dealing with nonsense;
- Work hours, vacations, "work/life" balance. All nonsense. All gone;
- Training. Please;
- I could go on.
Practical Impact
Work on what you want, any time you want, with whoever you want, for as long as it makes sense. When it doesn't, at all, you cash out your share and move on.
First Steps
- Starting an informal new company of one, and do the work you love;
- When someone is interested in joining you, develop the pattern into a working system, and try it out.
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